StrongerBible

diaireō

διαιρέω

GreekG1244“divide, distribute”

Appears 2 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Luk 15:121Co 12:11
Compound of
diaδιάthrough/because of687G1223
ahireōαἱρέωto choose3G138
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradedee-eye-REH-ohverb

What diaireō means

to apportion or distribute: to parcel out shares of something valuable and hand them to specific recipients, by the authority of the one doing the dividing.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This verb does not mean simply to split something in two. It is the formal word for an owner or an official parcelling out a defined thing, an estate, plunder, or revenue, into shares and handing those shares to particular people. The one doing the dividing acts with authority: he decides who receives what.

The New Testament uses it only twice, and each time it is exactly this act of giving out shares:

  • In Jesus' parable, a father parcels out his property between his two sons (Luke 15:12).
  • In Paul's letter, the Spirit hands out gifts to each believer, as he himself chooses (1 Corinthians 12:11).

Behind both stands a long history. In everyday Greek legal papers this was the standard verb for splitting up an estate among heirs and assigning each their portion. In the Greek Old Testament it is the word for allotting the promised land to the tribes and for assigning the priests their appointed turns of service. So when Paul says the Spirit apportions gifts, he draws on a picture of an authoritative, ordered handing-out, not a random scattering.

It sits close to the ordinary Greek verbs for sharing things out, μερίζω and διαμερίζω, but keeps a more formal and deliberate ring. The share it gives is meant to belong to the one who receives it, marking out what is now that person's own.

Luk 15:121Co 12:11

What scholars say about diaireō

The critical lexica converge on "apportion, distribute, allot (to recipients)" as the sense in both New Testament occurrences, moving away from the older "divide/varieties" tradition (KJV; Vulgate divisiones). BDAG lists "distribute, apportion, assign" and places 1 Cor 12:11 there; Louw-Nida sets the usage in the domain of distributing and apportioning alongside διανέμω, μερίζω, and διαδίδωμι; Foerster (TDNT 1:184-86) and Spicq (TLNT) stress the same. Moulton-Milligan document the Koine baseline from the documentary papyri, where διαιρέω is the standard legal verb for partitioning an estate and distributing shares to defined recipients, with P.Lond. 880 matching the syntax of Luke 15:12 (accusative of the thing, dative of the persons). In the Septuagint the verb regularly renders חלק for the allotment of the land (Joshua 14-19) and, as the cognate noun διαίρεσις (rendering מחלקות), names the twenty-four priestly courses (1 Chronicles 23-28), a sacralized precedent for Paul's language of gifts apportioned by the Spirit. For Luke 15:12 the commentators (Fitzmyer, Marshall, Nolland, Bovon) read διεῖλεν as a formal pre-mortem estate partition, distinguishing the son's request (the assets) from what the father actually divides (the βίος, the household's means of living). For 1 Corinthians 12 the disagreement is one of exegetical weighting rather than lexical meaning: Robertson-Plummer, Fee, Thiselton, and Conzelmann argue that the unambiguous participle διαιροῦν in v. 11 fixes the sense on the Spirit's sovereign distributing act, while Barrett, Hays, and Collins retain "varieties" as their surface rendering of the noun in vv. 4-6 while affirming the same sovereignty theme underneath. All parties agree that καθὼς βούλεται asserts the Spirit's personal will.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), s.v. διαιρέω, 229lexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (1940), s.v. διαιρέωlexicon
  • Werner Foerster, "διαιρέω, διαίρεσις," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 1:184-186dictionary
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (1989), §57.89, §63.23lexicon
  • James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), s.v. διαιρέωlexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (TLNT), s.v. διαιρέωdictionary
  • Takamitsu Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (2009), s.v. διαιρέω, διαίρεσιςlexicon
  • Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, ICC (1911)commentary
  • Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT, rev. ed. (2014)commentary
  • Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (2000)commentary
  • Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, Hermeneia (1975)commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, Anchor Bible (1985)commentary
  • I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, NIGTC (1978)commentary
  • John Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, WBC (1993)commentary
  • François Bovon, Luke 2, Hermeneia (2013)commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of διαιρέω

present active participle nominative n s

διαιροῦν

1Co 12:11

second-aorist active indicative 3s

διεῖλεν

Luk 15:12